Aegri Somnia
by Photic
Summary: Ellis was supposed to come back from supplies duty, but after a run in with a "friend" of his, he comes back beaten, hurt, and maybe a little sick. Thus starts a test for Ellis's loyalty, as he becomes his very own enemy, while the team looks for a cure..


**Aegri Somnia**

**( A Sick Man's Dreams ) **

_Author's Notes: __My very first fanfiction, so I'm hoping it's okay. There is NO real romance going on in this fanfiction. If you're looking for a smutty fic please turn away now. There's no yaoi in this, only friendship. And a whole lot of blood, gore, all the fun bits of getting infected. I know there's proabably plenty of Infected-Ellis stories all around here. I guess this is just another one of those "What ifs". Takes place after The Passing, and I really hope this is an okay story. So please give some feedback if you really can, and let's see where this story ends up! Um, also one last thing. There will probably be the death of people that you may really like as a fan, and I'm sorry if I upset you about it, but please don't flame or spam just because somebody you liked a lot was killed off. Sure, there will be plenty of deaths that don't have to do with the main cast, but at the same time, there's always the chance that someone you like will fall. Anyways, this is all I can think of right now in terms of warnings, so let's jump in now! Hope you enjoy it and happy holidays~_

_**Prologue **_

_**Nectar**_

Honey. It drips off the bumblebee's pincers, longing, begging for more. Saliva and honey mingles, falling, like rain, from the stinger, the short little legs, the translucent wings, and the towering antennae. Eyes are closed in ecstasy, every moment of sweet syrup is thick and tasting of sugar, a liquid of power, perfection, that can only be consumed from the fragile flowers swaying in the breeze. Old and calloused hands raise to the sky, taking honey from the nesting pollen within, the chest of these strange flowers, and drinking them dry, licking its lips and begging for more. A child to its mother, red milk coursing from the heart beat within the man's shredded skin, cold and wet and meaty in the night's summer rains. New Orleans is not the place for strange flowers. It's been overrun by bees, is the honeybee's hive now. And the stench can be smelled for miles.

Clutching its prize, the drone is buzzing, alive with the blood from which it has scaveneged from the dirt. Water hangs like sweat from its hair, draped and clinging to the shoulders as the mouth flicks open and closed, tasting the wind. The eyes are blinded by the dark, but it senses a presence, and knows it's being watched, studied like a wild animal. How it hates being treated like one, but deep in its heart there is much animosity within, hostility rising in the veins as snapping and shivering, it twists its head to look to the sky. A snake's hiss escapes from a rasping human throat, and a sound like man being choked is all that escapes from the monster's throat. The sky is pale blue, the beginning of a new morning, yet no birds cheep and no grass grows in the concrete pollenation grounds. This drone is angry now. Something is not right here.

BLAM

A spray of red, and the drone flies away, screaming.

Zoey cursed under her breath, and reloaded the sniper's rifle, watching the common infected turn and race into the darkness, too shadowed for her to see. All that remained of it ever being there was a single arm, new bait for its brethren, the stench of metallic blood rising into the air. Sweet like honey, but not satisfying for the pack of hungry wolves that would soon come running. Zoey sighed, also not satisfied. She had meant to kill that one this time. Those stupid zombies. How they fascinated her with their paranoia, all but human in the loosest term. That one had been particularly disturbed, and judging from the holes in its body, particularly experienced too. A worthy trophy, and probably something to shut the boys up for a while longer now that she thought about it. Still...she'd managed to get an arm, and that said something.

Only problem now was that she didn't have anymore targets. Zoey had been having "target practice", a new game she'd picked up when she'd found her new toy. The sleek, black sniper rifle she now held steady in her hands had become something of a fixation to her, a little something something someone had left stranded on top of this damned building / safe zone, amongst other things like ammo piles and first aid kits. Too bad they didn't leave a bag of chips in their wake.

Maybe it was just the tiny size of this small town, called Mayberry on the welcome sign, or the fact that there was only one convienience store in market, that was becoming a big problem for the L4D Team. Three people, Zoey, Francis and Louis, seemed to have the stomachs of bulls when it came to rummaging through supplies. Especially Francis, who ate enough for himself and Bill ( she bit her lip as she remembered him. Why did she always mention him? ), and it didn't help that there were frequent trips to the store, normally run by the boys, that left Zoey on top of this building all alone with infected. Ammunition, guns and health kits were perfectly fine and well stocked, but as for food and clean water, it was beginning to run out fast. Before long, the trio would have to take another road trip, and somehow make it to the waterside.

Their plan this time were boats...again. Like they hadn't learned the last few times, but hey, at least they didn't drown, and had made it back to the hellhole, back to where they'd first started. Another boat could take them up north, closer to Canada, which at the moment was declared safer, at least from what they were hearing on the radio systems the last few weeks. So this was the plan. Probably didn't make any sense, but hell, in this world they had no sense. Everything was a grasping for straws. Go up north to Canada, or go down even farther south on a wild goose chase. They had no idea what to do.

But right now, Zoey had this. A new day beginning, and some time to kill, in every sense of the word. So here she was with her sniper in hand, plucking off whatever infected walked into her path. Anything to quench down their numbers, and with the bait in place, there was sure to be a crowd going, once the blood wafted into the air. Any moment now, any moment...

Something coughed.

Zoey was up and over to the North ledge in an instant, scrambling and belicose over her luck. Perfect. Just peachy. So the drones had unleashed their knights now had they? Their own secret hitman. Oh this was going to be great! Zoey slid into the ledge, propping her sniper to her eye, scanning the main street now, a grimace stretching over her face. Creases deepened into her brow, she was a game hunter now, in her element, adrenaline kicking through her veins, screaming for release. Wait until the boys hear about this one!

Coughs emanated from the foggy overhanging of a tall building, and from her position she could only see its silhouette. Tall, slim and bulking around the head, the shadow of its long tongue hung over its fortress, like a hive brimming with bees. Drones were collected around the knight's stinger, looking up at whatever was coming down. She realized it now, that the smoker was carrying something! Eyes lighting up, she focused in on its carriage. Why, it was unwravelling something down towards the crowd. What looked like some kind of grey and corpse like man, curled up like a child in the confines of the cradle. A living cargo.

"Damn. Can't get a good look." She shifted her weight, shuffling over a bit on the ledge, then retained her position. Yes, now she could see clearly. The smoker held a young man in its grasp, his cap lowered down over his eyes, and as he neared closer and closer to the infected, they gathered in like hungry animals. Cackling even, like hyenas. Zoey found her nose reeling back in disgust. She raised her sniper to the head of the smoker's silhouette, focusing in on its head.

Animals. Dirty, smelly animals. They were pitiful, deranged and evil. She had seen them in so many horror flicks, back in the dorm rooms, so long ago. Hard to believe it, that just before this infection she had been dreaming of it to happen, picturing the zombies being plucked off in creative ways, like slapstick comedy on a cartoon show. Loony Tunes came to mind. But this was like a bad case of 28 Days Later, with a rage virus that turned people from the good guys into the rabid creatures everyone was on the inside. But for some reason, she and few others were immune. She could almost remember when she met that other team of survivors...

But that was sometime long ago too. Weeks were like years in the apocalypse. All she needed to do now was kill this smoker. "Almost there...Almost there!"

BLAM

The smoker teetered forwards and dropped like a brick, but for some reason, its tongue didn't follow. The body scrambled for a moment, as if alive, and clutching on to the ledge of its fortress before ultimately tumbling into the ground, into the swarm of bees waiting below. Screeching and shrieking, the monsters seemed to grab and tear at it before it even hit ground, and the smoker screamed.

Wait...It screamed?

Suddenly commotion on the roof brought Zoey's attention to the smoker's building. On it, bursted from the fog three silhouettes, one wider than the rest, and they immediately grabbed on to the tongue, shrieking as one of them shouted something Zoey wasn't able to catch. The tongue, having nearly uncurled its cargo, swung out of the fog for a moment, just enough for Zoey to notice its beigey color. A rope. As it swung back, she could already feel her heart beat faster. The three silhouettes seemed to meld into one big shape as they all lurched backwards, nearly disappearing into the fog again, heaving the cargo back up on to the ledge. One, the smallest one, rushed over to the ledge, staring down. It gasped, then shouted again something Zoey couldn't quite catch, this time a female voice piercing the sound of feasting infected, then rushed over to the others, who were now trying to see past the fog, probably looking for whoever had shot the gun.

Zoey, on the contrary, was watching it all through the scope of a sniper rifle. Only now did she pull her head back, face frozen in shock. From above, a cap floated towards her. Almost like a feather in the air, it drifted on the winds, falling from the cargo that was now lying on its back near the silhouettes. It landed just on the edge of the building, and she caught it just barely. With the shouts going on up above, she hardly noticed it within her hand, but she turned to look to the front, almost in a daze, to the stained and murky logo that shone underneath. It seemed vaguely familiar...

"Oh...oh." Her voice rose to a whisper. "Oh shit."


End file.
